Dyed in Amber
by MalachiteGreenIce
Summary: Viltė is a perfect girl. [Highschool AU, Fem!Lithuania]


**A/N: I wrote a thing, though it was written late at night so it probably makes little sense. I warn you: there is cutting and mental health issues. Anyway, I don't own Hetalia- this Fem!Liet AU is totally in my imagination. Reviews are always welcome!**

wondering if you are going to die today

a car crash

a shooting

drug overdose

wondering if today is finally the day

wondering

fearing

hoping

* * *

The girls across from her locker talk, as they always do.

"What if you could travel in time forwards ten years, what would you do?"

"Where would I be in ten years anyways?"

"Hmmm, I wonder what I'd look like if I traveled forward ten years... what do you think?"

A grave.

In ten years, she'll probably be dead.

That should bother her. She should be crying, wailing, breaking down in horror at the fate that awaits her, at the inevitability of the end. But she keeps walking, face impassive.

* * *

The blood trickles down her calf and she feels a rush of excitement.

 _Yes_.

She licks up the beautiful crimson drops collecting on the cut.

Tastes tangy and sweet. Like metal.

A smile forms on her bloodstained lips.

All she can see is the red.

And for a single moment, she doesn't care about anything else.

* * *

She enters the locker room, eyes searching for her PE friends. She can't wait to talk to them today.

Heidi is already there, fidgeting near a locker. So she gives a friendly wave and starts turning her lock.

After changing, she ties her neon yellow tennis shoes. She's worn the same pair since last year, and the laces are caked with leaves and dirt. She considers cutting off the ends because the teachers might get annoyed with her sloppiness. Maybe later.

Looking up, she sees that Erzsébet is also tying her shoelaces, and her lips lift into an easy smile.

When Erszi sees her, Erszi's face lights up in a flash. Heidi grins shyly from behind Erszébet.

"How was your weekend?" asks Erszi. A casual conversation opener.

"It was pretty good."

Which is true.

"The only bad thing. Uh," she falters, "It was just like-"

She catches Heidi's eye by accident and she can feel her smile pushing her eyes up into crescents, which makes sense, because that's how she always looks when she's joyful.

Say it. She's rehearsed for this. It'll be fine.

"Um. Me and my brother were playing basketball," She laughs, smile genuine and eyes shining with all the sweetness of high fructose corn syrup, "And he accidentally pushed me into a rosebush."

"Oh, I can see that." Erszi is smiling, perhaps sympathetically, which is good, she figures.

"I'm trying to do a lot more practice now." She'd done almost two hours of it on Saturday, and it was definitely an accomplishment, though she can't imagine she'll ever be as pretty as Erszébet, with her gentle green eyes and soft hazel hair. She'll never have such an athletic figure- Erzsi is definitely the fastest girl in the class when it comes to running.

"Great." Erszi flashes her infectious smile.

Erszébet starts talking about this amazing new Naruto fan fiction and all she can see is the way Erszi's green eyes sparkle and shine in a way that no one else's do.

She is glad she has such a warm friend.

* * *

She doesn't know what to expect when Alfred tells her he'll meet her at school this morning. They've only been officially dating for a few days now.

She meets Alfred in her cooking class. He's a member of her group on the day of the infamous exploding cake incident.

That day, standing in front of an open microwave with scalding cake bits sticking to her face, she gains the impression that Alfred is obnoxious, and not someone a girl like her should associate with. Never associate with people who cause your carefully crafted chocolate cake to explode.

She doesn't ever consider talking to him after that.

Months pass. She isn't sure why, but they start to talk about random things in class. Before she knows it, she's spending hours texting him after school.

One day he tells her she's prettier when she smiles and she's still floating on a cloud of happiness hours later.

 _He likes me. Right?_

One day he gives her a hug and she can't stop smiling.

 _Why is he so nice to me? Does he secretly hate me?_

One day he tells her he likes her and she tells him she likes him too.

 _Are we boyfriend and girlfriend? I can't believe it. I'm not sure. Am I imagining this? He exists, right?_

One day he kisses her on the check and her heart flutters in her chest.

 _He hasn't texted me back yet. He always texts me back. He's not dead, right? I hope he's not dead._

She doesn't know much about dating because she's never really had a crush before Alfred. She's wondered if it's even possible for her to be attracted to anyone. And Alfred says that she is his first crush, too.

 _Is he lying?_

She tells him about her friends and her hobbies and her life, and likes it when he tells her that she's a great friend. She's beautiful. She's a treasure.

 _He's not just saying that, right?_

Sure, they're different in some ways. Alfred is into video games way more than her. He knows he wants to be a video game designer, whereas she has no direction at all. But that can be fixed. It's not a problem.

 _He's so amazing and confident. I wish I was less stupid sometimes._

One day he says he loves her and she doesn't know what to do.

* * *

The man in her dreams looms over her.

The man whose face is cold and hard and smooth like an icy tundra. Whose voice pounds her bloody like a hailstorm.

No matter how hard she tries to hide her phone that first day, he finds it. No matter how hard she holds it tight in her hands, he tears it out and takes it away with his iron grip.

There is another woman in the house, perhaps a wife, but he pays her no attention. The wife, a willowy wraith with pale hair and almond eyes, wastes away. Alone. Hating him and loving him.

The more he ignores his wife, the more attention he showers onto his daughter. He never lets her play with friends, and only lets her talk to him. He controls her.

She walks through the halls of the kaleidoscope mansion, schoolbooks in her arms, and hates him and fears him and is trapped. The man is invincible. No matter how hard she fights, argues, cries in frustration, he won't let her defy him.

He controls her. She hates him. She _hates_ him.

What can she do? How can she escape when he won't let her?

He wants her. He possesses her.

What can she do?

And the days pass.

One evening, she talks to his wife.

"I hate him. I want to kill him. I want to bash his head in, see the pain and frustration on his face as he writhes in agony. I want to see the blood dripping down his forehead. I want hear the screams tearing up his throat, the blank look in his eyes."

She pauses.

"He'll be docile as a corpse. Just like the fish I used to eat with my mother back at home. Then I'll chop up his body into pieces so I'll know for sure that he's dead."

The wife says nothing. Just a shell of a person. A ghost haunting the halls.

"Hey, Viltė? Viltė?"

She wakes up to her brother's voice.

But she knows she'll never escape the nightmare.

* * *

what do people think the moment before they die

is there horror

relief

despair

anger

what is there

tell me

 _please_

* * *

She goes to school that day because there's an important math test. She has an 86% in this class so she can't afford to miss it.

The teacher is sitting at a desk, looking at some papers, looking bored.

She hopes her teacher doesn't see her staring and gets up. The desk approaches her as she walks up to ask for a test.

"Um... Can I take the test?"

Her teacher nods and searches for a paper, presenting it to her as if her life depends on it. Which isn't untrue.

She sits in the third row, next to Kiku, who always uses a ballpoint pen and she doesn't know why.

She digs into her backpack for a pencil, but come up with a green highlighter and a glue stick.

Oh well.

She turns to Kiku.

"Can I borrow a pen?"

* * *

She looks for Alfred at the flight of stairs near the science classrooms where he said he'd be, but they are deserted.

He probably hasn't arrived yet, though that's strange because he lives within walking distance of the school.

She can feel her breath quickening.

It's okay though. Everything's okay. Alfred will come and it will be fine.

She receives a text.

 _Where r u? I can't see u near the stairs_

She turns her head to scope out the meeting place again. Alfred is at school? Is she at the wrong set of stairs? She climbs up them again to check between the classrooms.

And there Alfred is. On the balcony-like space next to the classrooms.

She can tell the moment he sees her by the look on his face.

"Hey." She's not going to freak about about this.

"Hi." Alfred walks up to her, stopping less than a foot away. "How are you?"

"Fine."

"Um... are you feeling better?"

"Yeah." Though to her, it sounds cheap and hollow, maybe it doesn't to him. She hopes it doesn't.

He's silent, perhaps waiting for her to talk.

"I'm sorry, sometimes it just feels like everybody hates me," she says, and she isn't lying, though she's not sure she injected enough emotion into the words for them to be convincing.

It seems like she did- Alfred looks sympathetic and concerned. At least, she thinks so.

Alfred holds her hands, which is obviously supposed to be comforting. It isn't though, and Viltė would give anything to wrench herself out of his anxiety-inducing grip. He looks straight into her eyes, probably wanting to sound sincere.

"Viltė, nobody hates you. I don't hate you."

She knows that. She knows. There's no logical reason for her to even think that.

She's sorry, okay?

It's not like she wants to believe that people hate her, she just does.

She bites back the bitter retort simmering under her tongue and nods weakly.

He leans in closer, his face inches away from hers. She can see the peach fuzz above his lip and the wrinkles under his eyes. That's why she doesn't like mirrors. Faces look so ugly up close.

His lips touch hers for a moment.

She pulls back.

"I should get to my English class. I think school is about to start."

She smiles and waves.

So that was her first kiss? It hadn't felt like anything. Just two fleshy lumps momentarily coming together.

That's all it had been.

She had been swept away by Alfred's rugged charm, his honesty and sugary sweetness. She had been convinced he couldn't be attracted to her as she had been to him, and when he said he was, she'd been thrilled. Been convinced that it would all work out somehow. Maybe she had been wrong.

Because all she feels is a nagging, bitter cloud of paranoia.

She knows she can't be Alfred's girlfriend.

The magic is gone.

It's funny she'd thought it even existed in the first place. Hilarious even.

Ha.

* * *

The knife looks almost rusty, with dried blood on it.

Like amber.

It's a short knife, and it cuts shallow. An eighth of an inch at most.

She doesn't mind though. It's sharp enough.

It's pretty, too, the specks of amber against the shiny steel.


End file.
